What’s so special about Silicon Valley?

by Nadine

When we started setting up WACKER Digital’s Silicon Valley Challenge, I caught myself thinking: “Why Silicon Valley? What’s so special about it anyway?” – just like probably some other people wondered, too.

Well, today, we did a tour through the famous Silicon Valley. And I’m starting to get a first glimpse of what it is all about and why it is so special indeed.

Silicon Valley is an eco-system of its own, and it’s a unique one. True, you can find techies, universities and investors, great engineering talent and enormous markets also in other parts of the globe. But what makes Silicon Valley really stand out from the crowd is the spirit and the culture. And that’s the true value of Silicon Valley.

It’s all about cooperation, networking and easy information exchange. There’s a whole culture of sharing, mentoring and collaboration here which cannot be simply re-created or imitated somewhere else. It is a grown system of all kinds of diverse people working side by side on new ways of learning, working, living, creating, and organizing.

Businessman Reid Hoffman said: “Silicon Valley is a mindset, not a location.” I’m starting to realize the idea behind that – and I hope our teams will be able to embrace that mindset and bring some of it home!